In My Time of Need
by liron-aria
Summary: There was a point when Tess Mercer never expected Lois Lane to be her friend. Who knew how far they'd come? / A few snapshots of Tess and Lois' friendship.


A/N: Pretty sure this is my first proper Smallville fic. Hope I didn't mess up too badly!

Disclaimer: I do not own Smallvile. If I did, Tess would been in all ten seasons, and still alive to boot.

But that is neither here nor there, so please, sit back and enjoy!

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><p>Lois sighed, working the crick out of her neck as she looked around the room. The lights had dimmed since no one was moving, and it was dark and rainy and miserable outside.<p>

There was a faint, high-pitched noise, and Lois turned to see Tess asleep against the stairs, her glasses laying haphazardly on the workstation in front of her. Her face was creased in distress, and that had to be a horrifically uncomfortable position to sleep in.

"Tess?"

Lois groaned slightly, getting out of her chair and crossing over to the other woman. She bent down and shook her shoulder. "Hey, Tess -"

Tess gave a sharp cry of terror, jerking back to crack her head against the railing and curling into a ball, one hand cradled against her chest and the other covering her head.

"Tess?!"

Tess froze, and then forced herself to straighten up. Her expression was tense but calm, her press face, but her eyes were still panicked. "Lois. What is it? Where -"

Tess reached for her glasses, standing up and settling into her usual elegance, pulling all her barriers up tightly. "What do you need, Lois?" she asked briskly. "The program's still running, I can't make it go any faster."

Lois stared at Tess. "Uh… no, I… Tess, are you okay?"

Tess blinked, looking at Lois as if she didn't understand the question. "Of course I am."

Lois' eyebrows rose. "Tess, you cracked your head against the railing and had a freakout when I woke you up. And it didn't look like your sleep was that great before, either."

Tess' expression tightened, becoming guarded, and she rubbed the arm she had cradled against her chest absently. "I'm fine, Lois."

Lois rolled her eyes. Of course. Getting a hint of vulnerability from Tess was like squeezing blood from a rock. "Alright, whatever."

Tess rubbed her forehead a brief tired expression flashing across her face before she returned to typing at her workstation. "Oh, you've got to be kidding," Tess muttered.

"What is it?"

"China just brokered a deal which is going to tank WayneTech's stock."

Lois frowned slightly. "Investigative reporter, Tess, not financial."

Tess waved absently at Lois, turning to make a call. "Alvarez, China moved on the deal three days before they were supposed to. What happened?"

"Then _fix_ it."

Tess' expression grew forbidding. "If I'm up, you're up, Alvarez. Now do your job, unless you want me to find a new CFO."

Lois leaned back in her chair as Tess was a blur of motion, the bluetooth headpiece in her ear blinking continuously as she moved between workstations, scribbled notes, and flipped through charts.

"Tess, it's 4 AM on a Saturday morning. You've slept for, what, two hours? Take a break."

"I run two multinational corporations, one of the nation's leading newspapers, and coordinate a team of superheroes," Tess replied crisply, "And Henderson's late with his article, as usual."

"Henderson's still at the planet?" Lois demanded incredulously, "But you _hate_inefficiency - I thought you'd have fired him, like, after he joined."

Tess' lips twisted wryly, and she rubbed her arm. "His father's a senator, I can't get rid of him yet."

"Because he'll be _useful_ later?"

Tess glanced at Lois coolly, unfazed by the distaste in the brunette's voice. "Are you questioning my business practices, Ms. Lane?"

"Oh, for crying out loud, Tess, we're not at the Planet!"

Tess' expression tightened and she kept rubbing her arm. "Go home, Lois. There's nothing more for you to do here."

Lois scowled, but her gaze honed in on Tess' arm. "Your arm okay?"

Tess jerked her hand away sharply, clenching the sides of her skirt for a moment before relaxing. "I'm -"

"Yeah, yeah, you're fine," Lois cut in, "I'm going to see if we have any Chinese left in the fridge. You want anything?"

"… The coconut water in the back."

By the time Lois returned with cold noodles and a bottle of Tess' coconut water, the redhead in question was back at work, her arm wrapped in a heating pad.

"Okay, you just wrapped your 'fine' arm in a heating pad. You're not okay."

"It's just the breaks in my arm, Lois," Tess snapped irritatedly, "Leave it alone."

"Wait, the what?"

Tess sent Lois a look that could have stripped paint. "Father broke my arm in three places? Didn't heal black properly? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"No!" Lois replied, faintly horrified, "Tess, what - why -"

Tess looked taken aback. "I thought Clark or Oliver would have told you."

Lois stared back at Tess, dumbfounded. "Tess, that's not - come _on,_ that's not something they're just going to throw around!"

It was Tess' turn to be surprised. "Oliver knew when we were dating, and I told Clark a little while after I met him. We were… enemies long enough, I figured one of them would have told the rest of you by now."

"Okay, okay, rewind -" Lois held up her hands. "Your father broke your arm as a kid."

"Yes," Tess replied, annoyed.

"Oliver found out when you were dating."

"Yes."

"Clark found out after you guys first met, when you took over LuthorCorp."

"Yes."

"And you thought Clark and Ollie would share that information when they got the chance."

"Yes."

Lois heaved a sigh, running her hand down her face. "Tess, Clark wouldn't - He's not that kind of guy, come on. If you told him something like _that_, he's not going to tell anyone without your permission."

"Well, now you know," Tess replied simply, turning back to her workstation.

"I'm not going to tell anyone, either," Lois assured her.

"I don't particularly care, it's ancient history - I have more than enough information to ruin you or anyone who tries to use it against me."

Lois' jaw dropped. "Jeez, Tess, have you ever had a healthy relationship in your _life?"_

Tess' expression turned to stone and Lois winced. "Sorry, that was -"

"Eat your food or go home, Lois."

For a while the Watchtower was silent except for the gentle hum of machinery broken with the clack of Tess' keyboard as she typed and the occasional scrape for Lois' fork against her bowl.

"Uh… hey, Tess?"

"_What_, Lois."

"Your arm - I don't think you're supposed to have the heat up that high."

Tess glanced down at her arm and bit down a curse at the reddening skin. Well, there went that plan. She undid the heating pad and set it aside, pressing the side of her bottle of coconut water against her skin to cool it back down.

"You want me to get some ice for that?"

Tess tucked some of her flyaway hair behind her ears. "No, thanks."

Lois sighed heavily. "Tess… Look, I'm not saying you have to talk to me or whatever, but something's clearly bothering you. It wouldn't kill you to let someone in, you know."

Tess hesitated for a moment, her hands going still, when her stomach made its presence known with a loud gurgle.

There was a beat of silence before Lois burst out laughing, and Tess blushed fiercely.

"Shut up, Lois."

Lois shook her head with a grin. "No way. Looks like the indomitable Tess Mercer is human after all!"

"Indomitable - did you get that from Cat's article?"

Lois ignored her. "_You_ need to eat."

Tess blinked. "Lois, what -"

"I'm a big sister, I know what I'm talking about." Lois stood up from her perch against one of the tables, setting aside her own food. "You, get away from the computers."

"Lois, I'm older than you."

Lois blithely ignored her, ushered her away from her workstation and into a chair. "Now stay there, I'll be right back."

Five minutes later, Lois set down a bowl of something warm and steaming in front of Tess, just as she was about to leave for the computer. "Eat up."

Tess stared. "… Is that jambalaya?"

Lois shrugged. "Found it in the fridge, figured it was yours. Cajun food, right?"

"Creole," Tess corrected wryly. From the sound of it, she'd had to do that a lot. "Cajun jambalaya is white, this is red."

Tess used the edge of her spoon to cut a shrimp in half and then scooped up the rest, blowing on it slightly to cool it down.

"Good?"

"Mmm, it'll do for commercial food."

Lois scoffed. "'It'll do.' Well, Miss Mercer, I'm sorry it's not fine cuisine."

Tess smiled slightly. "There was an old woman in my neighbourhood. The kids all called her 'Nana Gautier'. She made the best jambalaya - spicy and chock full of pretty much everything - you got something different in every bite. She'd let me sit in her kitchen and do homework while she made it, on the days when my Dad was…"

Tess' jaw clenched and she looked back down to her food.

Lois looked awkward for a moment, before she joked, "Man, now I need some of that!"

Tess shook her head, with the same small, rueful smile. "My Dad came home really drunk one night before I got to Harvard. He was mad at me for… I don't even remember anymore. Nana tried to stop him, and he shoved her down the stairs. He's in prison for life with no parole now."

"That… I'm so sorry, Tess."

Tess glanced up, her expression becoming more vulnerable at the honest compassion in Lois' eyes. The last time someone looked at her like that - she was Tess Mercer. She didn't _get_ compassion. She was marble, stone, nothing hurt her, she didn't _need_ compassion.

Except when she needed it a lot.

Lois hesitated for a moment, before reaching out and squeezing Tess' hand gently in comfort.

Tess smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners and her dimples appearing faintly. For a moment, the world fell away, their worries over Clark and Oliver and Darkseid and the constant tide of darkness trying to drown the world relegated to the background.

Tess chuckled, returning to her food. "Nana took the kids in our neighbourhood out to the bayou once," she shared, her childhood accent creeping back into her voice, "My neighbour two doors down, Jimmy, was busy poking everything with a stick and managed to stab a gator in the eye. He ran _screaming_ out of there…"

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><p>AN: Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Please, let me know!

You can find my thoughts on Tess (mostly a lot of fangirling) under my 'Tess Mercer' tag on Tumblr.


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